Steak Club

[Davey Boy 2.0]

From the G&M:

FIONA MORROW VANCOUVER The menu reads like your colon's worst nightmare: prime rib of beef, onglet, beef tenderloin, prime striploin, finished up with sous-vide short ribs. Five courses of carefully sourced steak done every which way, headed with a prawn cocktail and a cursory tomato salad with blue cheese, garlic-and-parmesan toast, served with creamed spinach, stuffed mushroom caps, pommes frites and jugs of Bearnaise and peppercorn sauces. And for dessert: cheesecake.

Just your typical night out for Vancouver's Steak Club, a group dedicated to the art of red meat. Founded in 2006, Steak Club came into being when friends Dane Baspaly, co-owner of Lark, a Main Street designer clothing store, and Elaine Corden, editor of www.vancouver.com, started musing on how much they loved to eat steak. "One minute we were talking about steak, and the next, Dane had hatched a plan to execute this grand gesture called Steak Club," Ms. Corden recalls.

What began rather modestly as a dinner for eight at The Keg has mushroomed into a quarterly event with a membership strong enough to take over an entire restaurant for the night.

Restaurants are not so much chosen as self-selecting. "If I'm in a restaurant eating a fine piece of steak, I will strike up a conversation with the server or chef," says Mr. Baspaly. "That's their opportunity to step forward and get excited about hosting a meeting." The first whole-room extravaganza was at Main Street's Aurora Bistro, where chef/owner Jeff Van Geest brought the members in a month before the feast to inspect the side of beef he planned to dry age for them. "Then, when we showed up on the night, he had the raw beef sitting on a platter in the middle of the room, dry ice pumping around, with a spotlight on the steak," Mr. Baspaly says.

But there's more to Steak Club than a piece of meat. There is strict etiquette to be followed, unwritten rules to be obeyed, and membership can be revoked at any time. Steak Club is a point of view - a raison d'etre . It is a night of Bacchanalian excess that must be fully embraced. Sign you up? It's not that simple.

Everything about Steak Club is word of mouth. "It's a bit like the way people talk about local politics," Mr. Baspaly says. "You find out where someone stands by asking them a series of questions.

Eventually, you ask, 'How do you feel about steak?' If they don't respond immediately and positively, an invitation is not extended." Likewise, if the new member transgresses, they will not be invited back. They are expected to be engaging and interested in meeting new people. Though Mr. Baspaly eschews the notion of formal speeches and toasts, the unwritten dress code does require that attendees come in their finery, a big deal in a city where fleece and flip-flops are regularly sported in even the swankiest joints.

"It's not about being a high roller," Ms. Corden insists. "This is about the experience of a whole restaurant filled with all your friends looking tip-top and not having to worry about where you sit because every single person is a delightful conversationalist." "I want to feel I could be anywhere in the world," Mr. Baspaly adds. "This is our chance to be a little decadent. We behave as though we live in the city where we want to be, rather than where we actually are." The twist in this tale is that both founders and about one-third of the 30-plus members have a history of long-term vegetarianism.

Mr. Baspaly clocked in 16 years meat-free; Ms. Corden, two decades.

Mr. Baspaly was committed enough to rescue a turkey one Christmas with his wife and business partner, Veronika. ("Its name was Ruby," Ms. Baspaly recalls. "We have a photograph.") Now, they say, they have seen the light. "This is compensation for all the years spent eating Tofurky," Ms. Corden smiles.

Last week's Steak Club, at Pied-a-Terre restaurant on Cambie Street, went off without a hitch, despite one member with cholesterol issues pulling out at the last minute after showing his doctor the menu.

(Mr. Baspaly suffers no such problem: He has a rare medical condition in which his body rejects bad cholesterol. "I have a free pass to eat as much meat as I like," he laughs.) Each attendee received 20 ounces of meat (four-ounce portions of each steak) and, apart from a spoonful or two of spinach, managed to clean their plates and still have room for dessert.

Everyone brought their A-game, Mr. Baspaly says, from the chefs to the members. "I was really proud. People were giddy with excitement, they all looked beautiful and the meal was the best I have ever eaten. It set a new standard for Steak Club." "I thought they were mad," says Andrey Durbach, owner and executive chef of Pied-a-Terre. "I expressly asked them several times if they really wanted to do this." After watching his entire restaurant filled with the faithful, devouring the protein they love above all others, he is left with nothing but respect. "Three hours of unbridled, passionate gluttony.

... Was I impressed? Hell, yes."

[jaybone]

I suggest an Ontario chapter.

Who's in?

[Ol'Hickster]

Ill be in for starting one!

[Davey Boy 2.0]

alas, at some point in my life i'd love to do this but it ain't now

::chews carrots sticks slowly, thoughtfully, wispfully::